Process chambers are often used for semiconductor processing. A substrate may be placed within a process chamber and subsequently subjected to various semiconductor processing steps, such as deposition, etching, patterning, and annealing, as examples.
As semiconductor devices are being scaled down to critical dimensions of 65 nm and below, strict control of conditions within the process chamber is important to achieving consistent etch rates, deposition rates, etch depths, critical dimensions, etch profiles, and metal gate resistances from one substrate to the next.